April 8, 2025 — University Hill Commercial Area Management Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] All right. We are recording. Welcome to the special all community vitality commissions meeting. It is April 8, th 2025, and I will call roll. Trent Bush. I see you outside, Andy. Hi, Trent! Tell Jones, Danica Powell. Ted Rockwell here Andrew Shoemaker here. if Doll is not here as far as I saw not on them yet, either. Okay. Stephanie trees here. Brian cook Kevin now, is not here, as far as I see. Robin Ronan present, or Rebecca D. Michelle. Here Stephanie Pike is not here. Supra.

[1:02] Here. Sorry. Thank you. Jennifer Sherry Burger. See her here yet perfect. I will turn the meeting over to the chairs for particular. So Ted has graciously offered to take on the chair role for this meeting, since we've got such a large group and many chairs and vice chairs. So. Ted, if you don't mind. So we do have some folks it sounds like might be wanting to participate in public participation. I just see a lot of people online. I don't know. We haven't offered to have them raise their hands yet. All right. So we are at the portion of the meeting where we will welcome any public participation in this special. All community vitality, commissions meeting. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak now?

[2:00] Any hands, any hands. Ellen, not seeing any hands. Alright, let it run for 5, 4, 3, 2, any hands, Ellie. Okay, so we will pull up public participation over, and I will turn it over to the finance department to go to Item 3 on the agenda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm gonna take a moment real quick just to thank you all for coming together. This is our 1st joint commission meetings, and probably 3 years. I think we had a we had a summit, I think, when you 1st got on virtual. Yeah, yes, way back when? So just wanna thank you all for taking the time. We have a lot of conversations that we've been having and this, the conversations we're gonna have today are ones we could either have done it over and over and over again with a lot of different smaller groups. or in preparation for our council meeting that we have coming up in a few weeks. This is a great opportunity to get everybody together. Get your feedback on work that we're doing on. Not just the district analysis. But we also have Charlotte here, who also needs to be meeting with boards and commissions on the city's long term financial strategies. So she had approached me and said, Hey, she wants to meet with.

[3:20] And so this worked out really? Well, so she doesn't have to go to a bunch of meetings we can get it all many birds in one swoop. So Charlotte is here to present some information to you all on the city's overall financial picture and some initiatives that are going on before we get into work related specifically to general perfect districts and commercial areas. So, Charlotte, over to you. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Charlotte Heske. I'm the budget officer for the city. Good to be here with you this afternoon. I think I was just made a panelist, so I'll go ahead and share my screen. I'll be sharing out a very brief presentation about 8 to 10 min on the city's long term financial strategy. And we're essentially looking at a comprehensive financial strategy for the city boulder and wanting to share that out. And we're doing somewhat of a preview presentation to all boards and commissions, or to invited boards and commissions.

[4:17] As we embark on this work, particularly in some of the community conversations to come around our long term financial strategy. So our long-term financial strategy is a development of a comprehensive citywide strategy that has come really building upon prior policy recommendations that have come forward from the Blue Ribbon Commission reports of 2,008 and 2010. This will serve as comprehensive citywide strategy that we're focusing on to help guide fiscal decision making

[5:14] and long-term financial health of the city. I mentioned. This builds upon prior policy recommendations from 2 reports that were generated in 2,008 and 2010. The Blue Ribbon Commission reports, as well as a 2019 report that was developed called the Budgeting for Community Resilience Report, and these reports really built upon and signaled on particular findings and recommendations for the city of Boulder. And so we're working on this as part of the long term financial strategy. And those recommendations, including included calling for a comprehensive financial plan, cautioning the city's over reliance on sales, tax and dedication of funding sources recommended the identification of core services and service level prioritization

[6:02] and encourage the development of an outcomes based system of budgeting. Those familiar with our budgeting process over the past year may be familiar that we shifted recently over the past 3 years from an incremental based budgeting approach to an outcome based budgeting approach. And so we're on our way along this path of developing the recommendations and building upon the recommendations of the long term financial strategy and and working on developing the long term financial strategy within the scope of this project and citywide financial initiative that we're working on. There are 4 primary work streams that we're focused on with 2 phases of work, and we received policy guidance both from a council committee called the Financial Strategy Committee. That comprises 3 so members as part of that. we meet monthly with them and receive policy guidance from them. We're also receiving policy guidance and input. From several touch points that we're having throughout the spring and summer and fall from city council, and we also have an internal steering executive steering the meeting so just in terms of current and future state of what the long term financial strategy is focused on.

[7:11] We know that we have a high amount of our organizations, our entire city citywide revenues that are dedicated, reducing flexibilities to address community priorities and needs at the moment. And so, as part of the work with the long term financial strategy, we're working on increasing flexibility of funding to be able to meet emerging community needs. Our major revenue source sales and use tax has pointed to, particularly in thinking about our recent experience at the city with the pandemic period reduces stability and predictability of our funding levels. And so we're focused within this effort and this initiative on increasing stability and diversity of revenues and and reducing our over reliance on sales and use tax. We also recognize that we have a significant, unfunded, and underfunded needs list of city services and expiring funding sources, proving it difficult to ensure reliability within our future state of the long-term financial strategy. We're focused on increasing reliability through establishing guiding principles, revenue, identification and community priorities

[8:22] organization. We'll talk more about this in a couple of slides and what those conversations are to come this summer and fall that you all are invited to participate in. And then, finally, our recent practice is focused on short term decisions, particularly in thinking about the growth out of the pandemic period and the rebuild out of the pandemic period. And so these recommendations and this initiative focuses on the development of a comprehensive long term strategy for the city of Boulder that will help us to be able to comprehensively and holistically support core service levels and community needs. I mentioned, we have 4 work streams that are associated with the long term financial strategy. I'll just be brief with these. But that includes the long term financial plan that's establishing guiding principles and developing a 5 year comprehensive plan for the city, looking at alternative funding mechanisms. What potential opportunities do we have for looking at our existing fees, potential new fees and diversifying our revenue sources as a city recognizing, we have an over reliance on sales and use tax.

[9:26] We're also looking at our core service levels and identifying our levels of service, that the city should provide for programs and services through benchmarking analysis as well as upcoming conversations to be had within fund our future that are coming forward this summer and fall. And then, finally, there's a multi-year ballot measure strategy effort. That is part of this work where we're looking at and have developed a framework or a strategy for 2025 potential tax ballot measures and looking into 2026. And again, much of this conversation and comprehensive community engagement is to come this summer and fall through and uppercult fund our future

[10:07] we developed guiding principles as part of the long term financial strategy that really align with and uplift the sustainability, equity, and resilience framework within the city that includes fiscal sustainability and sufficiency, equity and resiliency. When we look at the long term financial strategy, we're really focused on under fiscal sustainability and sufficiency, ensuring that our core service levels are stable and predictable that our revenue is diverse and flexible and sufficient enough to be able to meet core service needs as well as community priorities under equity. We're really focused here on looking at our revenue structures that we have across the organization, as well as our financial policies, to aim to reduce tax burdens and fee burdens on historically disadvantaged groups. So that comes into play when we're looking at our citywide fee policy. What subsidies are we providing to particular populations across the city that we have. And then with resiliency, we're focused on the ability to anticipate, adapt and recover quickly to adversity and change, supported by a diversification of revenues

[11:14] and sufficient reserve levels. These next few slides. I think I just have about 4 left, but these next few slides are really focused on the multi-year ballot measure framework and the community conversations to come around the long term financial strategy. The multi-year ballot measure framework focuses on again a 2 year approach to potential tax changes that we're looking at within the organization. And so we've worked with City Council City. the Council committee that we work with the Financial Strategy Committee and building out this framework where in 2025 for potential tax ballot measures that we're exploring, we're focused on a more narrow incremental approach to potential tax changes with key focus areas and looking at unmet needs taking care of what we have and funding opportunities for core services.

[12:09] We shared with city Council last year, during 2025 budget discussions that we have significant, unfunded and underfunded needs list. That's currently around 380 million. We're going to be revising that list as part of the 2026 budget development process, and requesting that from all departments and understanding what additional unfunded needs do we have across the organization. And so again, 2025 is really focused on these key focus areas for unmet needs and taking care of what we have 2026 tax ballot measures for this second year of the multi-year ballot measure. Strategy is focused on a more comprehensive and creative approach to tax changes focused both on our unmet needs and taking care of what we have, as well as additional investments and services and programs. So in thinking about the tax ballot measures for consideration within the long term financial strategy. We worked with the Financial Strategy Committee. In narrowing down, we performed staff analysis, looked at history of ballot measures, and worked with the Financial Strategy Committee over the past 6 months in particular, on narrowing down potential tax ballot measure options for the full Council

[13:22] consideration. And we're working with council and potentially bringing these forward as part of 2025 tax ballot measures. And that includes an extension of the existing 0 point 3% community cultural resilience and safety sales and use tax from 2036 through 2050, or potentially extending that permanently to continue to support city infrastructure and maintenance projects as well as nonprofit capacity building and capital investment. So this existing tax, 90% of this tax about 15 million annually currently supports city infrastructure. It is largely exhausted with the current term that we have that was approved from 2021 to 2036, and we're excited to

[14:05] over 20 key projects, such as the East Boulder Community Center renovations, civic area and investments in Pearl Street, for example, with this tax, and so 90% of that goes towards city projects, 10% of it supporting capital infrastructure projects with nonprofits in boulder. The second tax that we are exploring with city Council for 2025 is the creation of a public realm tax which would increase the existing permanent parks. Property tax from 0 point 9 mils up to the Max that we have allowed by city charter. So 2.2 5.2 5 2 mills and expanding the use of this tax again, really looking at flexibility of funding and alignment with those guiding principles of the long term financial strategy, we're also looking at allowing debt issuance.

[15:00] And this would support infrastructure and capital maintenance projects to that would more broadly fall within the public realm. This would include items such as parks, open space, civic buildings and areas, and the public right of way, such as streets, sidewalks, bike lanes, and multi-use paths. Our approximate estimate for annual revenues with this tax would be about 7 million. And again, these 2 are really focused on that framework for 2025, and taking care of what we have at the city and our unmet needs. We have upcoming conversations as part of phase 2 of the long term financial strategy and what we're calling fund our future. And this will really be a holistic community conversation around potential tax ballot measures for 2026, as well as understanding trade-off and service level priorities with community members. And we invite you all to participate in this engagement effort that is coming for this this summer and fall where we'll where we'll receive input from diverse stakeholders on a trade off of service level priorities

[16:09] will help to educate the public on the city's budget, and as well as our financial constraints, that we have been seeing particularly over the past several years, there will be opportunities for City Council Member engagement, and we're also performing, not just in 2025, but also in 2026, a statistically valid polling survey that will help to inform the potential tax ballot measures that we're bringing forward. And again, the intent and focus on this is really to have broad community conversations about our service level priorities and understanding in feedback from comprehensive engagement efforts. What are the priorities that we're looking at holistically as a city. And how does that help to inform potential tax ballot measure changes for 2026? And then, finally, this last slide just points to the timeline for fund our future community conversations that are really coming within this window of July. Through October of this year. We're currently in April and May, where we're doing preview sessions to several board and commission commissions across the city. We'll be having a Community and Council Forum at a city council meeting on June 12, th and that will help to frame up

[17:27] the conversations to come with community members as part of fund our future in July through October, and we're rounding this all out in May of next year we'll be bringing forward narrowed options and staff analysis as well as a holistic overview of the community conversations that we're having later this year to city council next May of 2026. So with that brief overview. I'm happy to answer any questions that you all have. We look forward to? Inviting you all to engage in some of the the sessions that we have coming for this July through October.

[18:13] She raised her hand. Soup. Bye. So I was involved in community culture, what was called community culture safety. Now it's called resilience. A while back, when it went to just not like 8 nonprofits. and you had to get selected to be on it. And then it went to the ballot and then got some money. But anyway. And then the next year they came out with this other version of it. That's the one you're talking about here. And I was on a, you know, a task force about and stuff. But the they watered down the nonprofit money to the it's like a joke. and they really just the city took. As they said, they took 90% of it. And if you look at what the nonprofits get from this, it's not enough

[19:06] for nonprofits to make capital investments. I mean, of course, you have to raise money. It didn't even it was like a quarter of what we made. But if you give a decent amount. It helps nonprofits raise the remaining capital to stay in the city of Boulder. The amounts they're giving now, like maybe buys you a heater. You know it doesn't. It doesn't change the landscape of nonprofits staying in Boulder. And to to give the city more for this, I'm really hesitant to do that because I feel like it's such a a switch, you know, bait and switch, because, like, when they promote it, they promote all we're helping nonprofits. And there's pictures of, you know, my smiling bicycle people. But meanwhile, what we're really just funding is more city stuff, more city buildings. So that's an issue. The public realm. One. I know that members of Council didn't like the idea of bringing this to like the absolute highest that this tax can be, and while I certainly support bike lanes and bike paths.

[20:09] I agree with those accounts that said this seems short-sighted to raise it to the absolute highest can be, because then you can't go higher when you have a true emergency. So plus times are bad to be raising taxes on people. So I don't know. That's just my thoughts. Thanks. I have a question about the maybe if you go back to the slide about the public realm tax and I'm not. I don't deeply understand these taxes. So it's the the question is. I know we have, like some really big projects that are like, you know, redoing the civic center area like very large scale infrastructure. projects. And how how does the city like distinguish between what's like maintenance

[21:05] of pre-existing infrastructure like parks or buildings versus net new. And how like that in. you know, getting buy in for like a tax increase like this? And is there is there like designation? Or they just keep it very broad just to have, like the full ability to submit it on whatever is needed. Yeah, that that's a great question. One of the things that we are focused on within the ballot measure strategy that we I don't know if there's a way to PIN the other works on that. One of the one of the things that we're focused on within our 2025 ballot measure framework that we are focusing on is really taking care of what we have. And so when we look at our backlog of infrastructure that we have, we're also looking at total cost of ownership, so that includes renovation that includes replacement. That includes looking at our existing assets, that we have park assets, transportation infrastructure, for example, so we have

[22:11] a long list of backlog of capital projects, renovation projects, replacement projects. A great example is one that was shared for earlier with our East Boulder community center renovations where we're using our current community culture resilience and safety tax to help support significant renovations at that area within that project that we have within our capital infrastructure needs. So we are focused in 2025, really. And looking at that list that we have currently for our unmet needs in 2026, we are focused on this more holistic conversation and inviting the community to the table to help to understand priorities across the board. Within 2025. We're really looking and focusing

[23:06] on taking care of our unmet needs. And so it is a blend of both looking at infrastructure as well as renovation and replacement and total cost of ownership of capital infrastructure across the city's portfolio. Okay, yeah. And has a related question. My sense is that over time it gets more expensive to maintain infrastructure, renovate all these things, and rising costs really of labor and materials. All these things impact that. But the public doesn't seem to have much empathy, as much for those sort of things, because, like the investment was made 30 years ago. But you still have to like keep maintaining it. And right. So I think it's a it's a challenge. the like. If we continue to build new things that we continue after maintain them, and the price to maintain them increases over time. So like, what's the strategy? And maybe this is more of like, how do you engage the community on this to like.

[24:05] continue to fund things that get more expensive over time. Right? It's a great question. It's always a balance. And we look across all of the city's portfolio and work with departments to help inform the estimates that we're looking at and ensuring that when when it gets to the time where we're investing more in an asset, then, instead of just replacing it, for example. So it's a balance and planned across all of the departments that we work with that focus on capital infrastructure, including community vitality facilities and fleet parks and rec transportation utilities. But it is really a blend. So it's a good question of making sure that we're focused on maintaining that balance of capital maintenance versus capital infrastructure. And looking at the time period that comes forward where we know that we need to replace the asset instead of continuing to maintain. And that is a key one of the key focus areas of the facilities. Master plan. For example, when we're looking at our city facilities across the city's portfolio, which is inclusive of

[25:16] Parks, assets. And, you know, recreation centers and other items like that in the city's portfolio in terms of the the point. That you're making on the community engagement. We are interested in focusing on community input as part of this process. And so, as I mentioned, with our fund, our future work that is coming forward. This will take place this July and through August, and we're inviting we're gonna have information and input sessions and feedback that will be available available through online platforms and receiving input, from community members and hope you all will participate in that input and feedback to help inform what? 2026 potential tax ballot measures look like.

[26:12] I'll start by saying, I I own property in Boulder Junction that already pays 1511 above what a normal other neighborhood and in the city pays. And I understand how moving taxes from sales tax to property tax protects the city's interest and predictable revenue, but doing so a is an increase every year, because the property is increasing. And we are looking at a aging population that is dependent on social security fixed income as well as people who are losing their jobs right now that work for Noah and other organizations as well as anybody who might be impacted by a tech layoff or any other kind of layoff, and one way that residents can mitigate some of those issues is to reduce spending on discretionary income. This would not allow them to do that, because everybody needs to pay rent or their mortgage

[27:15] in their property taxes, whether they pay them directly or through their landlord. This might be a burden to a large percentage of the population. Yeah, could you go back to the that public realm tax? I just was. I didn't get the details it. So we're raising the mill levy. Is that going to the maximum, or what? I don't know? If if we're, is it maximizing the mills? Yeah. Yeah. So the the exploration of the creation of the public realm tax is really looking at expanding the current mills. That is specific to this funding source that's within the permanent parks tax and expanding the use of that tax to apply fully to the public realm, so it would be able to support and have more flexibility to support items within the public realm, increasing it from 0 point 9

[28:09] mills to 2.2 5 mills. That will take an increase. Our mill levy to the property tax cap, as I believe Sue was, was sharing previously, and we had internal discussions about that and discussions with the Financial Strategy Committee about that as well, and are not concerned with moving forward with that given backlog of need that we have within the organization, and we always have the opportunity to bring forward a potential increase. And so we we thought about that internally, and thinking about and thinking about raising that. And this is why this is proposed for full council consideration and potentially moving these forward. There is the option for Council members to consider this in in terms of moving both of these items. Forward, one of them forward, and none of them forward for 2025 these are the narrowed options that we that we were thinking about? Over the past 6 months based on staff analysis. See, guidance from Financial Strategy Committee. Does that answer your question. I know I just was wondering if, like, if you're in 2026, you're looking at holistic, and we're maxing out our mills this year. Does that

[29:24] preclude us from more holistic opportunities in using the mill caps? Yeah, it's a great question. We are interested in looking at other potential tax options. We have, as I mentioned previously, a high level of dedicated taxes across the organization. If we look at the analysis that we perform. The city of Boulder has a second, highest along front range. And so what? That? What that has demonstrated to us, and looking at the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission reports, is

[30:00] it limits our flexibility to be able to meet community priorities at the moment? And so one of the things that we have talked about with the Financial Strategy Committee is as an option. We could look at potential expansion of one of our dedicated current dedicated sales and use tax. For example, we could look at our current taxing base for sales and use tax that some other cities are also exploring, expanding that potential base. There's a lot of potential interest in looking at items such as vacancy tax, for example. And so there are other options on the table that we are looking at potentially exploring, it could also mean looking at potential exploration of approval of issuing debt. So there are, there are a multitude of options. So really, when we're thinking about 2026, it is more comprehensive, and that there are a long list of potential options that we'll be looking at, and that's something that we'll be doing ahead of May of next year as part of the work.

[31:09] Do you have Sue's hand up. Me quick comment. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Go ahead, Sue. The fire station was 37 million, just saying the new fire station, so maybe we could do things, bring things in a little bit lower costs. From your perspective of the city's perspective. This is me asking, so I'm curious what is the spectrum of most, the least progressive in terms of sales, of types of tax options like, there's just like a I'm not educated about this. So I'm imagining other people aren't like like property income sales use like, what's the spectrum of how progressive? Or, you know, equitable

[32:04] different types of taxes are in the, in the. We have to fund it somehow. So there's the world of, there's like, what are our options? Right? It's that's a great question. And it's something that we're actually going to be diving into further. And looking at further as part of our staff analysis, because in in general sales and use tax is generally a more aggressive task. Property tax tends to be more progressive. But it is something that we're going to be looking at further as part of the work that we're doing with our staff analysis on tax burdens. We are interested in looking at Boulder, specifically recognizing that there are different districts across the city that are charging more. For example, there are, there is a a good amount of revenue that comes into the downtown area that is generated by tourism, for example. And so when we're looking at. The tax program analysis, it's really balanced between. But, generally speaking, sales and use taxes are more regressive. Tax property tax is more

[33:15] question. So long term financial plan. And I'm looking at the bullet resiliency here. what we've heard is basically plan for the next 2 years to try to get us to a tax policy that would help support few things. What can you help describe what anticipation? Adaption hovering quickly, looks like once we get beyond 2026. Yeah, that's a great question. So the bulk of the presentation really just given, the amount of time is focusing most on the multi-year ballot measure framework, and then the conversations to come. So that's why most of this is focused. But it is a more comprehensive work, comprehensive initiative that we're focused on. As part of this, as mentioned, we're working on a 5 year comprehensive plan. So we're looking at.

[34:07] We're looking at having the goals of increasing, diversifying our revenues. And so one of the pieces that we're working on within the alternative funding mechanisms Work stream that we've been working on with departments for the past several months, and and Cv. Has certainly been supportive in sending this inventory forward is a comprehensive list of our fees. Looking at our cost. Recovery levels across all of our fees. If there is a potential to analyze and update and increase our cost recovery levels. Recognizing that we're looking at that equity piece within our fees as well. That is one opportunity. We're also interested in exploring public private partnerships, potential grant opportunities and also tax changes. So it is a blend of of all potential types of revenues that we're looking at. And so really looking at diversification of those revenues and straying away from the over reliance sales tax as part of that work.

[35:09] there was another piece to your question. Well, I I basically I repeated the section of the resiliency bullet. And so it was. Recover quickly. I think that the main thing is there. What we're seeing is a shorter term thing, and I think some of the questions that you're getting are like. Then what happens? Because, you know, nonprofits may not be, you know. getting the money that they once were or would need more. So how do we adapt to those things once these things, if they go in place, how do we adapt to them? So the specific piece on the adaptability. One of the pieces is really looking at our diversification of revenues, where we will be able to have more flexibility of funding and more stability of funding, particularly in

[36:00] times, where, you know, we saw with the recent pandemic period, a steep decline in our sales and use tax revenues that impacts the services and programs that the city is able to provide out to community members. So that is something that we're focused on within the resiliency piece. The other key piece to this is really focusing on our reserve levels that we have across all of our 41 budgeted funds. And so we have a minimum minimum reserve amount is 16.7% general fund. We have 20%. So we're really focused on ensuring that that is in place. In addition to our diversification of revenues, to help balance both of those for being able to adapt if and when things come forward again. we about use the time that was necessary in the agenda for this item. So are there any other burning questions at this time before we move on to the next. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. And this is not the last. You're going to be hearing on this topic, so there'll be a lot of opportunities to be thinking about this work. And while it was not intentional, I think it's really helpful that you all the context of this, the work that's happening at the broader city, wide level, thinking about the work, that and the service levels throughout the city. In the context of the work that we do improvement districts which do have that higher taxing level?

[37:27] And as we're looking at ways to pay for the things that we want to do if there's not going to be the level of service level of resources at the city wide level, what are some tools that we can employ some changes or adjustments we can make to the the existing districts. That will help us to achieve those goals. So, as you know, we've been working on this for some time now. and we're about ready to go to Council City Council in a couple of weeks to present some recommendations. And so you're going to be hearing from Regan and from our friends over at Puma.

[38:03] on where we're narrowing in all those recommendations you are our advisors as we approach city council. And so today is the opportunity for you to provide some input. It will be included in the memo that we will be providing to city council. It's due on Thursday. So if your comments are long, then there's not gonna be a lot of sleep over the next couple of days, but we do welcome them. This is this is the opportunity to to really help inform the message that we send City Council on this work. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Regan. Thanks, Chris. can you share your screens? Awesome? Let's dive right in. We can go right to the next slide. So I'll just give a brief overview of what we'll be diving into today. I'll give some context for how we got here. Why, we're tackling this work. And then I'll hand it over to Puma to give a background on each of our districts. We'll talk about some priorities, as it relates to each of our districts, challenges that they're each facing and then we'll go kind of district by district and go over some of the recommendations that

[39:24] and checks next slide. So just to get a give a bit of context as to how we got here. Why, we're doing this work, as many of you know, this work really supports and builds off of Council's established priority of commercial area connections and quality of life improvements and the primary goal of this project is to provide clear guidance on financial and governance tools that support the health and sustainability of our commercial districts, and, as many of you are aware, serving as commissioners of our districts. Our districts have evolved since being established. And so we're really seeing opportunities to address some of the challenges that we're

[40:07] okay through. Thank you. Seeing an opportunity to address some of the challenges that we're seeing today through new or adjusted district tools. And the key focus is on our existing Gid, St. Kj. Uj. While also considering district tools for other areas that require attention in the near term. So thinking civic area, Alpine balsam, where the new city campus is being constructed, and 55th and Arapahoe a bit further east, but serves as a large employment center for the city. and so through an Rfp. Process, we selected Puma, who, I will be handing it over to shortly. They've been tasked with conducting an existing conditions, analysis which is reflected in the district, profiles that were included as an attachment in your meeting packet. And they really leveraged past plans and studies and some supplemental engagements to ultimately craft recommendations for us today.

[41:15] Maybe I'll use that here. Let me put the cameras right in front of it. It's perfect. By the way, you guys should have T-shirts or something. Gid Fest did fest 25. Thank you all for being here. I I know we've gotten to see many of you on the screen, but it's great to see you all in person. So thank you for having us like. Regan, mentioned a big part of our analysis to date was to understand existing conditions in each of the districts. Again, like Regan mentioned, there's more detail on each of the districts in your packet. So if you really want to dig into details, there's an opportunity to do that. But we'll give you some highlights here just to set the stage and and maybe give you some context about the districts that you are not on the commission of. So

[42:18] here's just a summary of some characteristics of each district. Kj. And Euge were both formed in 1970 with the intention of of creating parking, infrastructure, and or managing parking. Kj. Currently has a mill levy about 3.7 mills, and then Euget's mill. Levy is 1.7. Bjad has 2 districts as those of you who are on the Commission know there is the parking Gid, and then the transportation demand management. Gid, and they do have some overlapping boundaries, but also are not totally contiguous, so I'll just note that both were formed in 2010 and have slightly different purposes.

[43:05] Bjdp is intended to manage parking, and then the Tdm. Gid. Was formed for the purpose of transportation demand management, as the name suggests. So the parking Gid has a 10 mill levy, and then the Tdm mill, levy is 5. So when we met with you all last, we mentioned that we looked at some key market indicators. So we're just gonna give you a couple highlights here where the data was available. We looked back to 2016, through 2024, just to understand what was happening before the pandemic, and then, since so you can see here retail vacancy. It might be a little hard for you all to read from from the back there. But in general retail vacancy has been trending up in all of the Gids since the pandemic.

[44:00] keep on moving here. This next chart looks at office vacancy again, where where data is available. So you can see. Actually, Bjat is doing quite well with office vacancy despite the pandemic but Eugene and Cajun are hovering right around 20% following the pandemic. And then the last market indicator. I'll highlight. Here is property value. So I know the the graph is a little skewed, because Cajun's value is so high above the others. But I'll just point out the percent change on the side over there which I think is really helpful. Note that these are not inflation adjusted numbers. So just something to keep in mind. Cajun's overall property value has gone up slightly. Eugen has gone up. Most of that change actually happened between between 2023 and 2024. It's hard to tell again. It's the bottom line there, but there has been some growth in property value, and then Bjad has experienced the most growth, as you can see on the on the right there.

[45:12] I know there's a lot going on on this slide, so we can come back to it if anyone has any questions. But this is a total budget for each of the districts, and then we looked at the top 3 sources of funds and top 3 uses of funds. So you can see there are consistencies across some of the districts, but also some some differences. Parking revenue property, tax generation are consistent sources of funds through several of the districts, and then some top uses of funds, administration, capital improvement plan. And let's see what else? Administration. District management things of that nature again, I know there's a lot happening here, so we can come back if if folks want to dig into those numbers.

[46:00] Here are district priorities which we shared with all of you when we met with you virtually again, some consistencies and some key differences here. And we came up with these priorities, based on previous planning efforts and some strategic stakeholder engagement that we did as part of this process. So I'll just go through and highlight a few things for each district. There are some key capital improvements that are needed moving forward, including Pearl Street improvements. The civic area redevelopment, which is is very topical. Given where we are today. The future of downtown office space coming out of the pandemic is a key consideration, and then just general maintenance on operations of the infrastructure in downtown for Eugene safety that is consistent with Cajun, and the connectivity between those 2 districts is a really key priority. Looking to the future, particularly with the new investments that have happened on the hill with the development of the hotel and convention center.

[47:06] Diversifying Eugene beyond. Just an undergraduate destination is something we heard, and then we also heard that there has been high business turnover and some economic stagnation within Eugene. For Bj. There are some different priorities ensuring the district is walkable and transit oriented is a key one. Looking at the second phase of redevelopment for that area is another key priority. Now that the 1st phase is largely complete and then continuing to look at capital improvements and the transportation demand management components are also very important. Some challenges. I don't think there will be any surprises for for you all here. But some some key challenges. For Cajun there has been submission, creep for the Gid beyond its original mission which was parking. So we just wanted to flag that here several folks that we spoke with don't really understand the difference between what caju does versus what the business improvement does. The district does. So we wanted to point that out here and just address it.

[48:17] Some capital maintenance, liability, and the funding of of long term capital improvement needs as a key challenge for kjet as well. For Eugene. There's more of an issue with the amount of funds being generated and being able to cover what the district's priorities are. We've heard that there are some really clear priorities, and yet the assessment revenue is not sufficient to cover those priorities looking to the future. So we're going to be looking at recommendations to address that for Bjad, actually, the opposite problem. So funding levels currently exceed what we have for some future plan program and infrastructure improvements. The role of the districts in the phase. 2 of Boulder Junction redevelopment is unclear and then figuring out the the right mill. Levy amounts for this district is also very important. In addition to the fact that we have 2 districts

[49:18] overlapping currently. And so now I think, Brad, I'm gonna turn it over you to you to talk about what all that means. Great thanks, Amanda. So I'm going to talk about recommendations for each district. There's 1 slide for each district. Apologize. I didn't realize this would be an eye test for you folks from the middle of the table to the back. But we'll walk you through these so on. And if you recall, our our task was to look both at near term and then longer term adjustments to your districts so near term. We were really looking at a horizon in this next 6 months to 2 years longer term. We were looking beyond 2 years.

[50:02] So on. Cajun immediate actions, one that that we think could happen pretty quickly is just to get a better idea of what Cajun does, what the bid does and really identify? Are there? Are there redundancies here? And are there tasks and or resources that should be pushed to one side of the ledger or the other. So that's an initial recommendation that really just takes time. It takes staff time. It takes collaboration. With the bid to really understand. What are we each paying for? What can we clarify moving forward the second one. Here is a big one, and it took up 3 pages of your staff report. and this is coming from both downtown and the hill. and I mentioned to you all when we met in Prior both in person and virtual sessions. I've I've done a lot of work with your districts, particularly the hill and downtown going back 25 years, and this is the 1st time I remember the hill and downtown being aligned in terms of vision, and aligned around the notion of how do we connect the visitor experience between the 2,

[51:17] and a lot of that is driven by the hotel investment? But also acknowledgement of the close proximity between downtown and the hill. So certainly, before we started on this, folks have been talking about a downtown development authority for a year, 2 years longer. For a while there's been talk about a downtown development authority for better or worse, we're well versed in that. We've we've helped to create about a half dozen of these over the last 3 or 4 years. So we were able to evaluate this opportunity for downtown for the hill perhaps beyond, and, as you can tell from the staff, report also from the community dialogue that we sort of parachuted into this is a compelling opportunity for Bolton.

[52:08] So why a Dda, why does that make sense? Well, from a revenue standpoint? And really this whole session today is really focused on revenue. There are 2 revenue sources through a Dda. One is unique. One is not the unique revenue source. Through the Dda is something called tax increment financing. Many of you may be aware of what that is. The only 2 entities in Colorado that can utilize tax increment financing are a Dda or an urban renewal authority tax increment financing does not increase anybody's taxes. That's that's something to put on the table initially, because there's there's tax fatigue. There's uncertainty in the economy. It's a difficult time to be talking about additional revenue through various forms of taxation.

[53:01] So what tax increment financing does? It allows a geographic area a downtown. In the case of a Dda, it allows that area to capture future revenue increases from future increases in property values and sales tax. So if sales tax increases over time, the increment over and above the year we create the Dda. There's a base year. let's say 2026, pulling a number out of the hat is a base year for a Dda. Whatever sales tax revenue is collected by the city in that year would continue to be collected by the city. But if that increases into 2027, and beyond that increase that increment could come back into the district and be reinvested same with property tax revenue. So if property values in 2026 are at some level, and then there's reinvestment in the area that increment that increase in property tax revenue, not the mill levy, not the tax, but the revenue, because values are increasing.

[54:09] that increment can be captured and reinvested into the area. So you're gonna see the same recommendation for Cajun and Euget, the potential for a downtown development authority that could potentially encompass both areas and Broadway, and the connection in between potentially to continuing on Broadway up to the Alpine balsam area as well. It's a pretty broad area that could be encompassed by a downtown development authority tax increment. Financing is an option, also a mill levy is an option through a Dda. so a Dda can add up to an additional 5 mils. There are some interesting implications of that of the mill levy. The 5 mills exceeds the mill levies currently collected by both Cajun and Eugene.

[55:03] So in theory, in theory, you could potentially create a Dda and actually consolidate both your Gids and eliminate them and have the Gid assets and programs run by a Dda. So there's a lot of compelling opportunity for boulder through the Dda tax increment financing potential mill levy, we can talk more about that. Because of the timing of sort of parachuting in here, also looking at data. When we look at valuation data from both the hill and downtown. And we look at sales tax. You guys have stagnated since the pandemic. The hill is stagnated. Beyond that, really over a 10 year period, there hasn't been real growth. And when you factor in inflation. There's been erosion in sales and property sales, tax and property values. So you can actually make a pretty compelling case that an economic stimulus is needed in both areas moving forward. So that

[56:09] that's the Dda. We can go back to it again. It's a big chunk, your staff report. There may be a lot of questions, because it's such a compelling opportunity. The way we are pitching this is, let's evaluate the Dda opportunity again. This applies to downtown the hill. Let's evaluate that. See if it makes sense. Take a run at that. If that doesn't happen, though, how do we continue to look at different revenue sources because we got a lot of needs. So these alternative strategies and it'll be the same structure for the Hill Poland Junction. You're different. You'll be treated a little differently in terms of recommendations. So alternative strategies. If the Dda doesn't happen downtown debrising to increase your mill levy. So what's what's debrising the downtown Cajun and University. Hello, excuse me, mill levies. One reason they're relatively low

[57:05] is because, as values have increased tabor, which is part of the Colorado constitution limits increases in taxes to a formula. It's a formula of growth and inflation. So your mill levies have actually come down considerably from what they were and what they could be because of this, this tabor adjustment on your district so you could vote. It would require all this would require a vote. By the way, Dda would require a vote within the boundaries not citywide. Don't worry, but it would require a vote within the boundaries of the affected area. Similarly, if we're going to debrief, debruise it would require a vote within the boundaries of Cajun, within the boundaries of the hill Pearl Street pith. This would be an additional this would be a fee added to sales tax. So a pif is a public improvement fee you see this at Flatirons Mall at the shopping center. So if you look at your sales receipt there, you'll see Pif, another 1%. I think they charge on sales up there.

[58:14] potentially could be employed within downtown again would require a vote, would require a vote by properties that are affected by that sales tax, while yes, aggressive, or I'm sorry. Regressive on this sort of continuum of taxes. It does export a fair amount of the tax burden because visitors you have a lot of visitors. They're buying stuff. So there's a pretty healthy percentage, and particularly with some new events coming to town, there's gonna be a pretty healthy percentage of sales tax revenue that you'd actually from visitors these discussions today, it was very timely to have the citywide finance plan talked about today cause the notion of any citywide action

[59:02] for a bond issue, or the the parks fee, or you know the mill levy on the parks downtown, and for that matter, all your districts should be in the discussion. Just don't don't think that just because you have an improvement district that if you've got a a high dollar capital need. We should also be on the radar for citywide votes when those come up. So that's something to put in here. And then also it really only in a spot use within downtown. But there are other tools. There is urban renewal. So again, if the Dda doesn't happen, urban renewal, which has bad rap has bad reputation. You do have it in boulder. It can be used for properties that are blighted. So there are state criteria for figuring out what a blighted property is, and if you have a blighted property, you can use that tax increment financing again. It's the same tool we talked about with the Dda. So not a lot of opportunity. But there may be selected sites

[60:07] where that could be employed. All right. Eugene Hill media action. Let's look at that. Dda, so let's see how how that makes sense. The connection to downtown in. In this process I met with with a group of folks from the hill and the downtown that are looking at this. What are they called the connectors? Right? Very bolder name. So met with this group called connectors. And you know, there's there's a lot of folks there, and there are a lot of folks that have been around for a while. There's some folks who've just sort of parachuted in I asked them. I said, if you created a Dda that connected the hill and downtown, it's likely that downtown's Revenue is going to drive most of the revenue in that. Dda. You just have so much more property value as you saw in one of those graphs.

[61:02] so much more sales. And you know in theory you're going to be helping to generate revenue, that that some of that's going to be downtown. Some of that could be in the hill, but you may be indirectly subsidizing what's going on in the hill there. There was no anxiety about that at all. so there was a clear sense of purpose. We're in this together. Someone has a bad experience on the hill that's going to be bad for downtown, particularly if if they're visiting a hotel or for an event alternative strategies. So we're putting a lot of eggs in the Dda basket, particularly for the hill. That doesn't happen. We could debrief debrief that mill levy their mill. Levy is small, but the valuation up there is small. so the magnitude of additional revenue you could raise through a mill levy increase, somewhat limited until parking rates do we have the right parking rates? Is there an opportunity to recover more revenue that way citywide bond issue again, making sure that if the hill has some significant capital, need they? They think of that? And these again urban renewal on a spot basis for any properties that that are technically blinded. There's also another intriguing opportunity we feel is a gap

[62:14] because there's a lot of angst right now, both downtown and the hill about the visitor experience with these hotels opening up and just dropping people on Broadway, and then they have to figure out where? Where do I go? What do I do? You know what's going on here? So a real desire to improve the visitor experience through maybe subtle ways or not so subtle ways. There is a recently approved lodging business assessment area. This attacks on your hotels believe it's room nights that there's a there's a tax. So every if I stay in your hotel, there's gonna be a buck or 2 that's that's added to my room night. It's a fairly significant revenue stream, and we're suggesting, at least in the interim, until the Dda creation is played out. If there is a need to improve that visitor experience immediately

[63:04] look at capturing some most portion of that lodging business assessment area from the 2 new hotels. I mean, they're they're right there, and maybe some of the downtown hotels as well, so we think there's an opportunity there as well. Last, but not least. needed actions. We are all on board on this notion of merging these 2 districts. So you got 2 district. The intention was great, you know, parking transportation demand management. It's created some administrative burden. You got 2 boards. There's some ambiguity sometimes. Between what are these dollars for? What are those dollars for? It's actually rather expensive. So is there an opportunity to merge these districts? The challenge there is. The geography is not precise. So the transportation demand management

[64:05] footprint is larger than the parking footprint. so we'd have to look at how, if we're gonna merge them, we gotta get to a footprint. That's the same for both. And then there's some legal. There's always, you know, welcome to improvement districts. You know that there's always been some legal also immediately analyze expansion options for the next phase of Boulder Junction for adjacent properties. That's pretty clear cut. Adjacent properties can annex in to the Gid they can petition annex in council, I believe, can approve. adding those properties, but there may be more than just adjacent properties that we want to look at as the development occurs there and then. Yes, let's look at at steps to reduce the mill levy. There's already been those of you on the Bjat boards have already sent this request, I believe, to council. We would. We think there's justification for that.

[65:04] The the challenge is, we want to make sure, though, that you still have opportunity. If there's future needs where you need to to adjust your mill levy again. So our only caution on that was, if it's a reduction in Mill Levy, is it temporary in case you need to go back to the tool for larger expenditures down the road. and then short term again in terms of development. And a lot of this might be phase 2, or beyond all these adjacent properties to the East. Again, urban renewal. You can actually make the case, and I don't want to insult anybody as an industrial property over there. But you can make the case of blight pretty easily. Over there in terms of just the conditions of some of the properties, particularly if there's redevelopment that's proposed. There are also other district options that have not been heavily used in boulder that are actually well suited for new development.

[66:02] So at at, I think, the Bjat meeting we were at in March I talked about metropolitan districts which which have a shaky history on the Front Range. They've been used inappropriately by developers in a handful of communities, maybe more up and down the Front Range. But it's a very powerful tool for infrastructure finance. So if there's new development of scale there, it is a powerful tool. And I my response back to the Bjat folks when we talked about. This is part of the problems with metro districts was negligence by local governments. Local governments didn't put up guardrails for these developments, and I would expect Boulder to approach this if they did approach it in a much more sophisticated way than sorry some of your neighbors up and down the front range. So is that it? I'm controlling it. So why am I looking over there? I think that's it.

[67:02] I think we got all time in the world. Now for questions. Yeah, yeah. So I bet you could do this pretty easily. I'm wondering if you could give a sense of the scale orders of magnitude difference between all the revenue options. Not that I'm asking for like revenue projections, but like 1, 2, or $3 signs, and which is a framework I use, like with my customers to like, try and get a give them a sense of orders of magnitude without getting too specific. When you would do that with them, like the caveat question, is, is the goal to get like a portfolio approach to revenue, or there's like a lot of different sources of revenue, or just like shoot for the big one, which I assume is the Dba. But I don't know. Yeah, so so great question. Love your method. We actually sent 1, 2, and $3 signs to the city for the cost for exploring these things so very familiar with scale. But

[68:07] you know it's different. It is different orders of magnitude. So with Bjat, you know, right now you've got 15 mills. That's a heavy burden on a commercial property. the only higher improvement district of your type that I can think of higher mill levy in the State is actually Cherry Creek. So you are the Cherry Creek north of of Boulder. so you can run man of room right there. So yeah, I mean, the the options here are limited because you've got the Gids, you're you're generating sufficient revenue. So to me, that's that's a year to year adjustment type of deal. You know what what revenue is really needed. Coming up. Urban renewal could be a 2 to $3 sign tool depending upon the scale and scope. Metro District could be a 2 to $3 sign based upon, and 2 to $3 a lot of money, $1 sign, or a cent. I use a cent sign sometimes because it's paltry.

[69:10] the Metro district I was talking about in terms of a finance tool for infrastructure. 2 to $3 something. It's it's fairly significant what? What that could raise. I know you're you're answering about Bja. But you specifically were asking about downtown correct, more interested. But oh, I'm a team player. You opened it up. I gotta give you the tour, and downtown is going to be last. So nobody's gonna leave. So okay, Dda, it's a. It's a 2 to $3 sign. you know, probably a $3 sign. If you if you activate both sides of it, it's a 3 to $4 sign, because you've got the tax increment financing, which can be considerable over time. A Dda has 30 year life. Then you can extend it 20 years, then you can extend it 20 years. It's a 70 year potential proposition. Now that base gets adjusted, if you extend.

[70:07] But still the tax increment, the combo of the tax increment. And the potential mill levy is, if you're looking to raise revenue on the type of civic improvements that we're talking about, it's a 3 to $4 debuting your mill, levy, you know you that's gonna be a cent or a $1 sign just because of the magnitude. But if you did that downtown it could be considerable parking revenue. You're not gonna get that much more. You're not gonna squeeze that much more out of parking revenue on the hill. I mean downtown, maybe. but on the hill it's really limited. And you know the hill sold one of its parking assets right. That's how they're doing streetscape now, because you sold your assets, and you're using some of that money for for streetscape citywide bond. I mean, that's where the big money is right, if if you can get this whole city to help support improvements in your districts.

[71:06] So you know that's a 3 to $4 urban renewal as we talked about earlier. 2 to $3 sign. This lodgers tax is intriguing to us. It's it's probably a $1 sign. But as a gap filler while we're while we got angst about. You know the visitor experience here in the near term. it may be worth it, just so that most of y'all could sleep a little bit better. And then the last one here downtown. Dds, 3 to $4 sign deep rooting, you know. Probably a couple dollar signs here. Your middle of is fairly low. It's 3.7. I remember that right? You have the ability to go all the way to 10, nearly 10. So I mean, there's a fair amount of room there. You could potentially triple that

[72:00] the Pearl Street, Piff, you know, on sales. If you added a penny on sales in a defined area that's that's probably a 1 to $2 sign type of thing. Citywide bond issue again. That's big. forbid renewal on a site specific could be significant. And I'll close by just saying yes. You want to diversify your revenue sources. That's kind of what you want to do. You don't want to be relying on any one of these, even if you form a Dda. it's gonna take a while for that increment to build because you'd have a base year. And then you got several years if we did this in 2,019, you wouldn't be making a lot of money today. So you know you you gotta. You gotta be a little patient with that increment and know that. That's. you know, $4 signs, maybe 10 years from now. But it may be $1 sign in the 1st 5 years. Did that help? Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So the formation of the Dda you mentioned that you've not seen this alignment

[73:05] generation and a half, maybe more. That's been one of the things that I have anxiety about in irrational anxiety. I don't anything about this kind of thing, but in my head I've said, Well, Dda makes sense, but then downtown sucks off all the air out of the balloon. And how does the hill maintain its ability to generate funds within the Dda? If you could help me understand the answer to that question, and then go further and give us some of the pitfalls of Dda. Like, what are the risks in entering into a Dda. Sure. So let me answer the Euget question first.st there! There's a couple of ways that you can safeguard the original intent of what you want it the 1st one. So I mentioned urban renewal requires a blight set that you have a blighted building.

[74:01] not with a Dda. A Dda requires something called a plan of development plan and development is essentially an action plan for and a business plan for the Dda. A plan of development would be would be created by the affected area stakeholders in the affected area, coming up with essentially bundles of different improvements. That we would do so. There may be a connectivity bundle, you know, to connect the 2. There may be a small business support bundle that both downtown and help support there may be a couple of things unique to downtown, you know. The Pearl Street improvements may be in a bundle additional streetscape in the hill may be a bundle. So the plan and development is sort of safeguard number one, because that that gives us the the sort of full palette of what the Dda can do the second one is governance. So the Dda is managed by a board of 5 to 11 members.

[75:03] That board is appointed by your city council. That board actually has more influence over what happens with the Dda revenue than you guys do your advisory boards for counsel. So the Dda is a little bit more independent. Good man. In constructing the Dda board there could be a very concerted effort about who sits on that thing. So, for example, if we want to make sure that Hill has a voice, we could say, X number of seats on this board will be property business owners resident from the Hill X. Numbers of seats could be from downtown. We go to Alpine balsa. Maybe there's a seat for them, so So I would say, that's that's how a Dda stays focused. And if we're living in a momentary moment of goodwill and love, you know we capture that in the plan of development.

[76:08] and then you perpetuate it through a governance structure that has all these folks represent anything to add to that Nope pitfalls of a Dda. boy. There's not a lot there's there's about 2 dozen of these throughout the State of Colorado. But I'll say a few things like anything. They they are a new enterprise. They're a business. and you got to run and manage it. Well, Dda, you would want you know you'd want a couple of people on your board like you guys, you know, on the Gids you'd want Staff allocated. That's another beauty of the Dda. We love our staff. But, man, they're they're pulled all over the city. Dda would have dedicated staff just for the Dda working on that. We gotta make sure you got some, you know competent people doing that. So running the business. Well.

[77:05] excellent, I I do think. And it's to your point. I think there's some caution here. If this thing gets too big. if the thing gets too big, it can lose sort of its central purpose. It can get a little unwieldy. There is some restriction here on a Dda. There's only one per city. and it does need to have a relationship to the historic central business district of the city. That's the intention. So certainly downtown. You can make the argument, I think, pretty easily that downtown hill evolved similarly similar timetable. Beyond that it might be a little tougher. Did that answer your question? That was great. Thank you. Okay. There was. Well, there was a hand up here, too. Yeah, I was just curious. You mentioned the length of the Dda being 30, 2020. Yeah, what's the length of the other alternative strategies? And how does that? Oh, really question only or so. Your Gids are perpetual.

[78:07] They are forever. They have no time limit congratulations. You didn't know your term would last forever. Some of these other special districts like a Metro district. They have set terms. Metro District, I think. Go up to 40. That's the one you would use for infrastructure, and you would use it for bonds to pay for infrastructure. Urban, and all is a 25 year life and then the 30, 2020 has some strings. So 30 years. If if you want to extend your Dda after that your base changes you can't use. You did this in 26, just thinking randomly. If you did this in 26, and that was your base 30 years later, in 2056, you can't do another 20 years. At 26 you got to bring your base up to 10 years prior to what you're doing it. So so there's some limitations in there. There's some adjustments in there, probably the best example for you guys

[79:02] for a Dda. And I don't want to get into trouble, because, you know, cognizant of rivalries. But Fort Collins. that downtown has been pretty much supported, built, infused with capital from its Dda. And it's in its it's gone through the 30. Now, it's in a 20. Does that help? Okay? Other. Yeah. Sorry. Were you gonna answer something else along that line before I ask you, was there another thing I should answer, no, not on that particular one. Okay. I haven't seen the use of a tiff against sales tax revenue before. We did just hear from the city that there are shortfalls in other areas of the city is particularly for folder rides that live here, and we're here. My concern for that would be, would we be hamstring the city if we gave up feature revenues from one of the main tourist?

[80:00] Yeah, really, really good question. So you know, the good news is we're not raising your taxes. The the, the flip side of that is, we're bringing money from someone. So where is it coming from? So in sales tax? Yeah, that's the city portion of sales tax that would be generated from our Ddi boundary would be essentially frozen at that 26 level 2026 level. Any increment above that would be reinvested. And there's more property tax. Where does the bulk of your property tax go schools. Boulder Valley schools. So on the property tax. If you're going to freeze that level at 2026 property tax property tax a little different, and I'll explain this in a minute. But you've got other taxing authorities that potentially could be sacrificing future revenue for the good of downtown and the hill in Boulder. The the property tax thing is is a little bit more nuanced, because with the sales

[81:03] 2026 bam. That's our cap. Everything above that, we're reinvesting. Property tax is nuanced because that base you'll get appreciation in the base. So if your base is is a hundred dollars and there's inflation, or there's other adjustments in that base. That base will go up a little bit. But the the value from new investment that's the increment that we're talking about. So if you do pursue the Dda, one of the steps one, the city's gonna do an internal analysis because they've got both sales and property tax potentially. That's being coming in here. And you go talk to Boulder Valley schools. And you gotta go talk to the county because you're potentially using, you know, their future tax revenue to invest in your downtown, and you need to make a compelling argument. Why? Why? Why should we invest in downtown.

[82:00] I will say this. We just did this in Lafayette. I realize Lafayette is small. but we dealt with the same characters. and from the schools what they said is, look, we're a really tough time. Our budget is tight. but if you improve downtown, Lafayette, and it's more family friendly and more people with kids are gonna move here. That's more important to us. The county was a little bit more judicious, because again, Lafayette was such a small little slice of the pie, and they said, Well, that's kind of a rounding error. So that's fine. You can. You can have our money, but you have to make the case to the different taxing facilities. So did I answer your question in all of that? Yeah, I think so. But I think it's something that if I were on those boards I would be extremely cautious about. Yeah, yeah, it's just the geographic area that that increase go just the taxes from that geographic area correct. Could you also argue that for the schools and

[83:04] other county based taxing that like, perhaps the majority of the families are also in the non. That's often a case, too, is that you know. Now now think about that, though it depends because we may be wanting to create housing in those areas. And that could create, you know, are we gonna have families live in downtown, you know, probably a small percentage. But we could so you're not necessarily creating more demand for their services by doing this, the other thing to keep in mind and this is a caution for Boulder and for them is that you're in stagnation mode right now. I mean this, both downtown cause when I 1st started working on this, I don't know. First, st when did we start working on this 1st of the year. It's been fast and furious. but but I was like Dda and Boulder. I mean, you guys are awash in revenue. I mean, you're the the heart of privilege along the Front Range. Sorry, but that you know that's the perception

[84:02] coming in here. Well, when you look at the numbers you're not, and when you look at the numbers you're you're in economic stagnation on the hill for a long time and downtown since the pandemic. So I think the case to be made one of the cases to be made to the taxing authorities. If we don't reinvest in these areas. They may slip with the office vacancies that you have downtown with the struggles you know that the hill just perpetually has. If if we don't change it up. You know, there's a big risk. 2 hands over here. Chairman will pick. Okay. I'm just curious. If you could expand, maybe a little bit more on what you might see with the phase, 2 Expansion and Boulder Junction. How that relates to the current board structure. Well, let's let's take a step of time, because I think we want to look at consolidation first.st No, so let's look at consolidation first.st It's it's a lot

[85:04] I don't say easier, but it'll it. It makes a lot more sense to us that you have one district that does these things. You could. You can budget because one of the questions we had at one of your meetings was, if we consolidate, because, could we? How do we preserve the mill for parking? How do we preserve it for? Tdm. The easy answer that we did talk to legal counsel. Did you do it through budget? So you you budget a certain amount of mills for each. But if you had one district, one board, this notion of expanding into Boulder Junction 2 just becomes more clear cut. So do you offer more representation, you know, on the board on the Governance board some sort of proportional representation. if you have 2 districts, it's a little trickier, and if we have 2 districts, we're sort of multiplying the complexity here because we got 2 boards. 2 options for expansion. Also the other thing I think you wouldn't want to do, although you'll have the city will have influence of this. But you don't want to get into haggling by the properties coming in of. Well, we want to be in parking, but we don't want to be in Tdm, I mean that that can be kind of problematic.

[86:11] So they're just. I I don't know if I've answered your question or not, but but I, as it expands the board structure, could adapt. But I do think we think that going from 2 to one could have some advantages in many, many ways. Yeah, so just because this is building off yours not to avoid you yet. So I I mean, I do support merging, merging them, and bringing tfap phase 2 into the same district. But a couple of things. 1st of all we do have properties that are joining one, not the other. That's why we have different property lines. A big problem with with them. Joining is the the mill levy on parking district. Right? That is, that is significant. Some history that you may not be aware of is that we have tried to waive pilot fees for nonprofit properties or affordable housing, and we have been unable to do that legally up until this point. So that has been a potential barrier with phase 2 joining in is that they will be responsible for pilot fees to catch up to all of us that have been paying it

[87:23] until now. Good to know. Thank you. It just to build on that. I worked on the Rev. And we we couldn't join Bjab, so I'm not really sure. We joined the Tdm. But not the access district. And it wasn't an option. So and Google did the same. So I'm not really sure I was told. You just can't, because there's no parking district for your side of Pearl, so there's no. So I mean, this is a long time ago, Molly winter, but it was seem like an option. Not. This is a long time ago, but I'm just like the idea that these boundaries have been weird for a long time. So I'm I'm looking at Chris, because my understanding is part of this work

[88:14] could then be a springboard into getting this resolved. So if, if along with you, we're saying, Hey, this this is kind of funky, and there could be a better way to do it. Then that creates the the platform to go to the city council and say, Hey, we need to go. The next step. Is that correct? You're not. Yes, and it's just making sure that we're thinking about the nuances from the forming ordinances that stipulate the catch up and the pilot fees. And I I want to follow up with you after the meeting interesting. And we can, we can talk offline later. Someone's been very patient over here. So as we think about this discussion potential discussion of the Dda between, for example, the school district and the county, the you know the.

[89:05] As I think about it, there's the issue of it's a it's a very small area the Dda would be, but the idea being that that they would lose that incremental revenue. But then the flip side is the increase of property value for the county and whatnot, and and so more revenues being generated on that end, you know, as a sort of an expert in the field. Is there a way to conduct an analysis of how much of of of you know? The the Dda moving things up floats the boat even more so of the entire county. Such that. You know. Wow! This is actually a really good deal for the school district and the county. I'll say yes, with some qualifiers on it. So

[90:00] that's part of what we do. So when we're working on the Dda, we'll look at projections, we'll look in the future. We'll look at what are what are some expectations? Because another important message for the Schools county and the city on property tax is, they're not going to lose out everything they're they're still gonna have a natural appreciation of underlying property value. When we did this in Lafayette over 25 years, it was about 40%. So of the tiff, about 60% went into the district, about 40% continue of the increase continued to go to the tax. So that's that's sort of number one. Just say, Hey, guys, you're not gonna lose everything. This is not 0 sum. I I yes, I think we need to make that. or I think you would need to make that argument of the benefit of a growing, vital downtown. And and you know the impacts of that where it gets a little tricky. And I,

[91:00] you know, as a as a expert, quote unquote in this, you get into multipliers and stuff like that. And I think that's smoke and mirrors. So you know, some economists will say, well, you know, if we grow downtown such and such amount. It's gonna have a 1.5% multiplying effect on this. I think that smoke and mirrors. So I think the way to do this is to just show them the facts. So here's here's our projections. These are sort of best case. Worst case of what we think could happen over 30 years. Here's the revenue that would continue to go to you. And, by the way, that revenue might not go to you if downtown continues to stagnate. and if we have a healthy, thriving, wonderful downtown and hill we're gonna have a more prosperous community. So I think there's some ways to make that. But I caution that quantifying that can can be a slippery slope. Yes, on downtown and the Hill line you mentioned that that would need

[92:01] voters within those districts to vote on it. Correct? Would that be only property owners, or also the business owners that rent with from a couple of, you know, a handful of large commercial landlords. Yeah, so good question. Also time. I just want to make sure we're fine on time. And I'm specifically asking this because of things like the Pif right? That may increase the cost of goods for people buying, and may cause issues for business owners. Almost everything we've got up here would require a table lunch. So a table election is in the affected area. You need to get the consent of electors within the affected area. Electors include property owners, including commercial property owners. They can designate someone to vote on their behalf tenants who are paying a lease. Commercial lease. They can designate someone to vote on their behalf and risk.

[93:01] So residents who are living in the affected area and are registered to vote. You know they they get to vote, too. And then when you get in taper, there's all kinds of nuance. But that's that's basically commercial property owners, commercial lessees, residents. Right? Okay. Yup. yeah. Can you speak a little bit more to the You said a Dda would not need to designate blighted areas. And if we didn't do a Dda. I feel like it'd be tough to qualify certain areas as blighted. Correct, it come down more to like floors or yeah portions of areas, you know. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to tamp down expectations on what urban renewal could do here. Because you really need to meet these conditions of blight. And you're you're not blind, right? I mean. Nor do you want to be. But

[94:00] there, there are specific parcels, specific buildings. Yeah, maybe we could make this. But there's not a lot of black in these in these areas. And the Dda would, we'd be able to, I guess, reinvigorate things. Yeah, I think I think getting it to that point, I guess, is what? Yeah, you're trying to prevent it right? Prevent it from getting black. The beauty of a Dda. One of the reasons we get excited about it. Is, you can tailor your plan of development to whatever your downtown or whatever the hell needs. I mean, and you have to have some vision because you're looking ahead 30 years. But that plan of development. It's also very high level. It's not prescriptive. It doesn't say we're gonna do this on this side or this on that side. But it says, for example, I had some examples earlier. You know we're gonna we're gonna look at the Broadway connection and we're gonna improve that improve the visitor experience. We're gonna help some one of the coolest things I've seen from a Dj. Actually comes from Colorado Springs. You wouldn't expect that necessarily. They have a loan program for small businesses to acquire their buildings.

[95:05] So you know, small business tenants. And I know this has been an issue in Boulder. In the past. Local independence rents go up, you guys get pushed out. Well, the Dda in cost springs actually makes low. No interest loans available for businesses to buy their building. So there's so you can just you can be very creative. And if and if you look at the plan of development for Fort Collins versus Colorado Springs versus Lafayette, they're all different. They're all tailored to what? What's in those downtowns? It's a great tool. Yeah, I I don't know if I should. I mean, it's definitely some all those other cities. You've seen it since. Becoming aware of a lot of these things. I just feel like Fort Collins, more interesting as a play off, yet more interesting, and boulders getting less interesting, you know, like, in a lot of ways.

[96:03] And yep. yeah, we're we're actually finding more and more of our work with Dda is also to preserve the qualities of what people like about their downtown. And it's not just the buildings, you know. It's the business makes. It's the local dependence. It's finding ways to support sort of the unique DNA of the Go ahead. But do I? I also want to do a time check with these folks. I think we have at least another 5 min here. Okay, great. I was just gonna say, I think tamping down the urban renewal is a good idea, because it like we've diagonal. Plaza, was the site that we should have done urban renewal on, and Uli did a tap on it, and nothing happened. And I I just don't think that's a tool folder uses. And then I think of like the opportunity zone, and how that whole thing, and how. You know, we put a moratorium on the Oc. Because we didn't want outside investment. And so, like, I think, building up this idea that we have more control over our future from this. Dda is really

[97:06] like, if you look back in our history and what we've tried to do to stop outside investment. And it's happening despite that, like, I think this gives us more control over our future and destiny. And that's something that's very in our DNA in boulder based on some of the crazy actions that we've done. I mean, we had money, you know. We had an opportunity zone, and we chose to put a moratorium on all development, and it was like a 6th of our city. So I think we've got to be conscious of what our actual tools are versus what you know, what our appetite is for stuff like urban renewal. Yeah, I I also agree with you on the messaging potentially for a DNA. It's all about local initiative. Well. why have we considered a Dda previously? Why haven't you considered a Dda previous? Does anybody know the answer to that? I don't know

[98:04] well, historically, the the concept of tiff up until probably the last, you know. Probably up until the pandemic was less palatable for a lot of members of the community and previous councils, not the current council, but to is, has been very used very sparingly. through the existing urban renewal authority. And so it's just that the times have changed. I I would guess it's stigmatized as urban, you know. So I was like, well, wait a minute. There's this other tool. We could use it. And it's it's completely different. It was voicing so that Fort Collins started their in 2,000 or about 20 years ago. Is that about 40 years ago.

[99:00] long time ago? Yeah. I just wonder how important it is to have large foundations at the table for a thoughtful development of downtown, because I know that they are in a unique situation where they have a very strong foundation that bought up an entire city block to create a music experience there which drives a certain culture. And so I'm just wondering how much did that influence the impact of a Dda or amplify the impact. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm aware of that development. I know they worked with the Dda, and I believe they got some financial help from the Dda post, Dda, though correction started in 2,001. Yeah, that was long after the Dda was there. So so that's another beautiful thing is is, if there's a niche that you want to foster. you know, on the hill, or or downtown, and beyond, you know whether it's live music, or

[100:03] apparently y'all are gonna be the film business, you know. If there's different niches that you want to foster, you can tailor your Dda to do that. I have a question about the electors, because one of you brought up the fact that there are a few property owners who own large swaths of property when they get one vote, do they get one vote per property they own, or one property. As the company entity, it's 1 1 vote per entity. So if you're a human and you own 5 properties. you have one vote. If you are a human that has 5 Llcs for 5 different properties, you have 5 phones. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Colorado law is very strange, particularly when you get to taper, because that's the other thing. We're marrying a Dda law, which is pretty straightforward with tabor, which makes no sense whatsoever.

[101:00] So you also need your city council on board with this. Be aware of that, too. So so yeah, so to form the zda. legally, your legally, your city council needs to pass a resolution to actually put it on the ballot. So you need your city council on board comments. And typically, when we've gone through this process successfully, we've also helped generate a draft plan of development on the front end. So you know what you all are voting. Interestingly, the plan of development is not approved until after the vote, because you need the Dda to adopt it. Yeah, what tactic would you expect the opposition of the Dda to take in terms of trying to shift the vote away from the Dda, I you know I don't. I don't know a lot about you guys up here, but I I think in in most cases.

[102:03] But see, I'll I'll just throw a guess out there. That boulder leads pretty far on the progressive side of things. You might find opposition on this use of schools, and in particular. you know, school school revenue to invest in a downtown while school districts going to be going through hard times. Remember the period we're going into. We almost have a recession guaranteed right now. Schools are gonna lose money, Federal money so there may be more tension around that, and and there may be an option to revenue share. That's the other thing. You can negotiate with tax authorities so put together different projections, and you know you have different. If if you exceed, you know your expected case, maybe there's a revenue share. But with the school district, or or who else but that? That would be one thing, that what I've seen is in a vulnerability and other Dda formation efforts is concerned about the schools, and then and then this is all. I mean, you guys are experts. You're on the Gid board. You have some sense of what this is about. I mean, you gotta translate tax increment financing

[103:13] and these other concepts to your constituents. When you put this together, it can be fairly complicated. The last thing I'll say on a table election. This Tabor doesn't help the vote, because the Tabor prescribes the language that goes on the ballot. So the Tabor language is mind numbic, and it can be scary, you know. Do we form a Dda? Well, that's easy. Can we raise tax increment financing over a period of time that could exceed, you know, 300 million dollars or some crazy number, you know. Are we going to bond on this? So this. So the language of the ballot is not helpful. So there's a fair amount of education involved in this process. Gonna cut off questions right there, added to Chris for so just a reminder, we're getting ready to update our memo that is due to city Council in 2 days. I think there's been a lot of healthy discussion. It's really great to hear. Some of the questions are the same things that we've been talking about internally. And so we'll summarize what we've heard as far as questions.

[104:17] But I'm wondering if we can maybe maybe get just a nod of commissioners as a whole, as general comfortability of the direction of this work. or not, with the chair, maybe leading that nod of approval of work thus far, or or disapproval. This is a nod of approval. Yes. Ask one question. Is there? Is there a way to get it on the 2026 ballot? And is there a way to us to? Is that possible? I think, that we are anticipating. That's what's happening. Not possible to get on this file 2025. Okay? So the plan is 2026. Is that what you're trying to? Okay.

[105:01] are you asking for individuals of of immediate recommendations and alternative? I'm seeing General nods around the room. So far we will make sure. That's reflected in the memo. That's the 1st time we've ever gotten a wave. Thank you. Everyone for the discussion. We have one more agenda item before we close for the evening? Back to 10, is it to me? Really it is you just have to. Well, okay. well, are we going to do the summit meeting? Actually, it's it's I take it back right. Ellie is going to leave this part of the discussion. Oh, gosh! So it's been brought up from Chair Don Poe, Dfc. He's not with us this evening. But he would like to have a summit with everyone. As it was mentioned earlier. We haven't had a summit in a very long time.

[106:25] so I guess So it got added to the agenda. If if there was a desire of the commissions or such a thing. We'd want to understand, maybe, what the hope was to get out of that type of gathering. We don't necessarily need to make any decisions today, but just wanted to. Maybe put a bug in your ear. We might add it to the next meeting. So be thinking about what you all might want to get out of a another opportunity to come together in this type of format

[107:00] and maybe do some strategic planning just wanted to be respectful of Don's requests. And make sure that you all were aware of it while we're together here today. And then we can maybe bring it up at the May meetings. We'll have new commissioners, other folks that we want to bring up to speed and new relationships built, so that might be a the right reason to do it. Yes, quick, quick question. So it sounds like we're we're you know, the next meetings like, if you can see, for example, we'll we'll talk about this further. It'd be useful to have if Don had a specific idea for the summit to have that in the memo, too. So we understand what cause? Maybe a great idea just need to know more. Yeah, I would assume. Yeah, I mean, it's basically like this, actually, only with this, we have kind of the recommendations from puma. Taking up the majority of the agenda, we would end up having an agenda that the commissions would all agree to, and we would discuss various matters. I would imagine the Dda would probably be on the table, that maybe I would assume, maybe where he's coming from there is anticipating some movement that maybe we would want to coordinate.

[108:08] But yeah, I think that that's a great suggestion. Alright! So. We'll make sure that we touch on this in the meetings. Alright! Is there anything else? From staff or from members of the commission that they want to bring up at this time. Great, seeing none, we are adjourned. It'd be too much.